Careful wording by the BBC

The BBC report on the latest re the al-Megrahi release and the very careful wording is most noticeable.

'Megrahi was freed by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill on compassionate grounds, and allowed to go home to Libya.

He has prostate cancer, and at the time he was said to have as little as three months to live. Megrahi is still alive almost a year later.'

Nothing about the rather odd way of getting a doctor to give that three months to live figure?

'Earlier, Mr Cameron said he had seen no evidence the Scottish government had been "swayed" by lobbying from oil company BP.'

What about the then Labour UK government? I do not understand why David Cameron is seemingly protecting the last Labour government. They spent 13 years attacking almost every Conservative decision of the previous 17 years, don't try and 'play fair' because they won't.

But the line that got me was this one

'BP has insisted it had no discussions with either the UK or Scottish governments over the issue.'

BP have already admitted that they pressed for a deal over the transfer agreement (PTA) fearing that any delays to negotiations would damage its commercial interests and disrupt its £900 million offshore drilling operations in the Libya region. Denials that BP had been involved in negotiations concerning the release of al-Megrahi carry little weight when one considers which other Libyan prisoners might have been caught up in the PTA.... the answer is that al-Megrahi was the only prisoner, so any attempts to deny specifically pressing for a deal over al-Megrahi are about as honest as a Gordon Brown Budget speech.

The following is from a BP statement

"It is matter of public record that in late 2007 BP told the UK Government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya... We were aware that this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan Government of BP's exploration agreement... The decision to release Mr al-Megrahi in August 2009 was taken by the Scottish Government."

There's a nasty story still to emerge about the real events leading up to the release of al-Megrahi and I think that it would be in David Cameron's interests to launch the investigation. Don't forget that Peter Mandelson met Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son at the Rothschild's Corfu villa only a week before the announcement that al-Megrahi could be released from prison. Also note Tony Blair's recent visit to Libya and I wonder what, if any, Jack Straw's involvement in this story might be?